My goal is to publish new posts twice a week — Mondays and Thursdays. However, if you don’t see a new post on Thursday, it’s because I was too busy, so please look for a new one the following Monday.

Emile Gallé vase Rose de France, Aguttes Auction

Claude Aguttes SAS held a 20th Century Decorative Arts auction in Paris on April 3, 2012. In the sale was an artistic 7″ Gallé vase, entitled Rose de France. Estimated to sell for €15,000 – €20,000, it soared to €154,135, including buyer’s premium ($202,546). Formidable! (That’s French, not English.)

A view of the back of the vase

That’s a lot of money for a 7″ vase, so you might ask why. Artistic vases rely heavily on the techniques of application and wheel-carving to create realistic 3-dimensional objects. The amount of hand-workmanship and technical prowess necessary to create an artistic vase greatly exceeds that for standard, commercial vases. You want to see some artistic vases? Go find a good museum. It was a rarity for a vase of this quality to be sold at public auction.

Detail of the roses

The Gallé Rose de France vase was part of a very limited number of vases in the series. Take a close look at the workmanship in the detail photo. It’s phenomenal. The roses were applied, as well as the stems. All of the detail was hand-carved, with no acid-etching. The background mottling is internal. It’s killer!

Not every artistic Gallé vase will sell for $200,000, but this one was special — beautiful, colorful and technically very sophisticated. I knew the price would exceed its conservative estimate, but even I was surprised by the final result.

Our next show will be the Arlington Park Racetrack Antiques Show, in Arlington Heights, IL, next week, Friday-Sunday, April 13-15. We always enjoy coming to the greater Chicago area. We’ve got lots of friends there and look forward to seeing them again. Come to the show! There are some great exhibitors and we’ll be bringing an outstanding display.
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One of the rarest and most beautiful of all Louis Icart etchings, Mardi Gras

Look around my website. There are many items for sale, sold items with prices and free lessons about glass and lamps. I regularly add Tiffany vases, lamps and desk accessories, as well as French cameo glass by Galle and Daum Nancy and Louis Icart etchings. Here’s the link. chasenantiques.com